Years ago, I wrote a column denouncing the decision of the University of California system to drop standardized testing in the cause of greater racial diversity. Now, hundreds of UC mathematics faculty have called for a return to such testing after reports showing a thirtyfold increase in students with math skills below high school level.
As written earlier, the University of California system was an early supporter of this disastrous move. It was heralded as a way to preserve diversity after voters in California repeatedly rejected race-based admissions and the Supreme Court appeared ready to bar such practices (commonly proven with reference to standardized test differentials among applicants).
Now, many professors in the California system have come to the same conclusion as some of us who denounced the move years ago. They have witnessed the drop in academic skills and abilities among incoming students.
These tests not only have the most significant predictive value for performance but also play an important role in the advancement of minority students. Former University of California President Janet Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.
Napolitano responded to such criticism with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students. The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.
Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”
Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.” In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.
That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted. So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions. The system would go to a “test-blind” system until it developed its own test.
Ending standardized testing had an obvious secondary purpose: to frustrate new legal challenges to the use of race in college admissions. Last November, Californians rejected a resolution to restore affirmative action in college admissions.
We have also seen the dismal decline in standards at elite universities like Harvard, where faculty have been compelled to teach high school-level math classes to students.
Various schools have now reversed this ridiculous move pushed by faculty and administrators in the cause of racial diversity. The proponents of the change, such as Napolitano, have said little after they decimated the academic integrity and standing of their schools.
The UC faculty cited the UC San Diego Senate–Administration Workgroup on Admissions report, which found that 70 percent of these students are performing below a middle-school level.
Like Harvard, faculty are now teaching high-school-level math.
The declining performance reflects the failure of our public schools, which have also lowered graduation standards. The top-spending public school districts are also some of the worst-performing districts.
Democrats always demand to be judged on their intentions, rather than results. It’s a recipe for disaster, and China is laughing.
End Federal Aid to Cities, STates, Non-profits and colleges
Outlaw Public Unions
Stop rewarding Democrat Failure!
First of all, the PPRC left socialism about 3-4 decades ago and started a capitalist society which basically brought their nation out of poverty. XI has tried to re-impose more of the authoritarian state part but still uses capitalism so now the PPRC more resembles the classic fascist state like Germany 1933-1945.
Math, which I hate, is still incredibly important in a modern highly technological nation and is relatively easy to test for the appropriate skills. It’s kind of like a binary skill and you either have it or don’t. You can be taught the skills with appropriate teaching or you may simply be lucky to have a mind that clicks with math. But it requires skilled teaching and even before we left standardized testing it was not often taught well. We need the testing to know where our students are in their skills and we need standardized math teaching which is highly likely to be successful in teaching the appropriate skills. It’s rarely subjective so the DEI crowd likes to call it racist. Thats about like calling the ability to read and write racist.
The math doesn’t lie. Worldwide, every school system has kids who get math and kids who don’t, whether you’re looking at Russia, Nigeria, Finland, or China. But about forty years ago, the U.S. decided to declare every student a math genius. The predictable result? Lowered standards and plummeting test scores. For colleges, this meant putting almost everyone through remedial math. Now, the very professors stung by their own bad policy are screaming foul. It just goes to show: when academics step out of their lane, they aren’t any smarter than your local lawn guy.
My lawn guy went the Holy Cross. BS in economics. Imagine that eh?
The Soviet Union failed economically and thus proved that the practice of socialism, as designed by Russian intellectuals, was a failure. This did not deter the group of American intellectuals who were educated in the 1960s. They gave birth to the ridiculous, non-intellectual, non-logical university faculties of today. Now with the rise of an economically much more sophisticated attempt at so-called socialism in the form of the People’s Republic of China, the poorly educated fools who dominate what this author refers to as our “elite” universities have placed the United States on a race to the bottom that has resulted in the populist revolt that has given us the Presidency of Donald J. Trump. I believe that the Pax Americana, created by the massive failure of European resource imperialism is facing its first challenge, the outcome of which cannot be foreseen. The situation in America is often compared to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. That analogy is false. A better one would be that the situation is much more like the collapse of the Roman Republic.
The Soviet Union failed economically … Incorrect, it failed politically – old vs. new, and not because of CCCP socialism, the CCCP was communistic up until its final moments.
Everything else you note is complete and utter hogwash Jack.
Dear Anonymous. Your arguments have as much substance as your identity,